Among his fellow Shiites there is a more complicated dynamic. Some parties, such as the powerful Supreme Council, agree with the Kurds' desire to have strong provincial powers, in part to curtail the power of the central government. Other Shiite groups, like those aligned with the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, are wary of granting more power to the provinces because they have a vision of a national Iraqi identity bolstered by a strong central government.
The former speaker of parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who quit this week, said al-Maliki's rivals pushed him out to facilitate a no-confidence vote.
A vote of no confidence would not be a coup; it would be a democratic, orderly way to change the government. But unless there is consensus about a successor, the government could drift as it did after the elections in 2005, when there were several months of discussions about who would become prime minister, and in 2006, when the previous prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was removed.
